Baby Glance offers 3D, 4D sonograms of baby

Published 6:59 am, Friday, May 23, 2014

With the growing trend of 3D sonograms and reveal parties, one new Midlander has recently opened her own business to help share the joy of seeing their baby with other families.

Stephanie Wilkes and her husband had moved to Midland from Georgia more than a year and a half ago when Stephanie was seven months pregnant. With the stress and busyness of the move, she decided she would wait until she got to West Texas before having a keepsake and 3D sonogram of her baby done. But when she arrived, she soon found that there weren’t any businesses offering the service.

That’s when Wilkes decided to open her own. In January, she started Baby Glance in an office space at Midland Drive and Illinois Avenue.

“I’ve always wanted to own my own business,” Wilkes said. “There are a lot of pregnant women here wanting an ultrasound and we just went for it.”

The business operates on a part-time schedule and started the first six weeks with about a dozen clients. But those numbers have almost doubled since and Wilkes said they’re slowly moving toward a full-time schedule. Wilkes has a stenographer on staff, Ana, who is a native West Texan and graduated from Midland College.

Baby Glance offers 2D, 3D and 4D sonograms at 15 weeks for gender determination and between 25 and 32 weeks for facial features. Each client is given a chance to hear the baby’s heartbeat along with pictures from the session.

“Normally, when you get pregnant, you have an ultrasound in the beginning and an anatomy scan at 20 weeks just to check the organs and make sure there is no health risk,” Wilkes said.

“This is just for fun. We can check at 15 weeks instead of waiting 20 and it’s so realistic seeing the newborn. Moms really enjoy that and there’s nothing better than hearing the heartbeat.”

The gender reveal, “Pink or Blue,” package runs $80 while the 3D and 4D “Love at First Sight” package runs $120. Parents-to-be can purchase both packages for $160.

Wilkes said they also offer Heartbeat Buddies that take a 10 minute heartbeat recording and insert it into a stuffed animal so families can continue to hear the baby’s heartbeat even after their session.

Baby Glance also has a tablet in the office that can connect to either Skype or FaceTime so that families that live far away and can’t be there for the sonogram can still see and view it taking place.

“All of my family is in Georgia,” Wilkes said. “I thought about wanting to share it with them for others. There’s so many now in Midland that are not from Midland.”

One new service the business also offers is a gender reveal party. For $250, a couple can invite as many people as they want to the office, bring their own refreshments and have a party for one hour to see the gender determination sonogram together. Wilkes and her staff provide the decorations for the event and she said she’s also hoping to be able to offer baby showers at the office this summer.

With the advances in technology, Wilkes said the new sonograms offer such detail and clear images that many can see their baby’s lips, nose and facial features. The pictures are then something they can save in their baby’s scrapbook or share with their family.

“This is a keepsake and something they’ll cherish and keep for a long time,” she said.